using our brains to save yours

One of our main goals with Moonrise has been to create a robust platform for a huge variety of different gameplay modes, especially for PvP. Our first foray into the realm of custom gameplay types produced Solari Arena, which is inspired by Sealed Deck formats popular in many CCGs…but with mechanics that helps create more balanced teams.

The tl;dr version is that Moonrise is a AAA multiplayer, creature-collection RPG for mobile devices. The long version is the rest of this article!

Moonrise is our first game (as a company) to be released on mobile, in partnership with Kabam who have a ton of experience on mobile platforms. Many of us at the Lab love playing games on our mobile devices (as well as the ubiquitous 3DS, and the Vita stalwarts), and we felt that phones and tablets would be a fantastic home for our AAA take on the creature-collection/battling RPG. There’s a long story about how we got there, but we’re saving that for a future article.

Having a long-term strategy for surviving the zombie apocalypse is a great idea. A big-picture plan is necessary if you are going to survive past the initial outbreak. Where will you live? What will you eat? How will you defend yourself? What are you striving for beyond simply surviving another day? Accomplishing those big-picture goals are going to require you to be adaptive. Tactics are what you do with what you have in an effort to complete objectives that further your strategic goals.

In State of Decay we put a lot of effort into making sure that players can transition smoothly between different tactical approaches to gameplay so that they you can adapt quickly and make adjustments to your tactics as the combat situation evolves. We want you to easily flow from stealth to melee combat to ranged combat to using items. We know that everyone approaches these challenges differently, and it was important to make sure that as many approaches were accounted for as possible.

Even if wading into a horde armed only with a rickety table leg is likely to result in getting killed.

I love the idea of MMOs. The idea of playing in a massive, persistent world with my best friends and folks from all over the world is incredibly appealing. Current MMOs offer the world, and tons of players, but I’m an action gamer and that’s just not what MMOs are right now.

I’ve been dreaming about what an MMO could be since I was a n00b designer. In my mind I always pictured piling into a car with my friends and tearing off into a massive world. They would lean out of the car, shooting and swinging bats.